Matthew Meade > Recent Status Updates

By referring to all the characters by their former jobs, (the policeman, the taxi driver, the doctor) Saramago writes about the breakdown of society and identity. Who are these people now that they are no longer who they were?

I've read so many of these stories throughout my life, but revisiting them at this point (in my 30s) they resonate differently. Stories I didn't understand, or didn't like, like "Careful," and "Neighbors," now seem subtle and complex and true in ways I could not understand as a 20 something. Carver has the ability to understand every unspoken thing that exists between 2 people.

Saramago's narrative is deceptive complex. By inserting a person who can see into the group he is forcing us to experience the story through her perspective. It is an impressive magic trick to manipulate the reader's identification in this way. Is the narrator the doctor's wife speaking about herself in third person?

This also is reminiscent of Camus' The Plague. Almost a remake actually. They are confined, a doctor is one of the infected and they start infighting right away. Also, there is a similar anecdote in Nietzsche's Zarathustre where a man saves himself from a plague of madness only to realize he has made himself an outsider so he intentionally succumbs.

There is also this strange thing where Saramago (or the translator) insists on using words like, "looks," or "sees" when he is talking about blind people. What is he getting at with this?

So, by chapter three the allegory is starting to take hold. The world is being tipped upside down: people wish they didn't have money, police are assisting thieves, cats and dogs are living together. There is an element of sci fi embedded in this premise. It reminds me of soderburg's contagion in that way, not technically SF, but about things so strange and bizarre that they might as well be.

Sure it's an allegory, but it is richer than that. The way he moves from one character to the next is quite deft. I know this is translated so it is hard to tell, but the prose seems strong, but not fussed over. The current trend in literature is to wring the life, the fat, and the charm from your prose. Saramago feels no such need to do this.

The tone is unique. Most writers Donny write like this. The narrator is omnipotent, but also our friend. I expect him, at any moment, to call me "gentle reader." I wish I had read Saramago earlier than now. I coulda spent my whole life reading this guy. People told me and I didn't listen.

Updike drops these great little asides like, "Rabbit remembers how (reverend) Kruppenbach's son used to tear around town on a motorcycle. It seemed somehow blasphemous." His observations are right on the money and really contextualize this world. But God damn is Rabbit a fucking child.

I realize now that most bad literature is John Updike's fault. Every young writer wants to write about a guy just jumps in his car and just ... Just drives, man! Every young writer wants to describe a church as "a hole punched in reality to show the abstract brilliance burning underneath." Every young writer wants to write about a former star athlete who is just a regular slob now, but no one can do it like Updike.